So on to the real reason to put pictures on the interweb. This weekend in Ashikaga, a couple stops away, there was a harvest festival at Coco Farms Winery. I put on my strategically colored wine festival shirt and took the train down bright and early and had a bottle in hand by about 11:00.
For 2000 yen you got a bottle of wine, a glass, and a corkscrew. Pretty good deal. It was a lot like the hanami (flower tailgating), but with grapes instead of cherry blossoms. The whole vineyard was packed with picnickers drinking heavily. Myself included.
You spread out your blanket right underneath where the vines would be at another time of the year. It was a nice party, with bands and food everywhere. The only concern was that the entire vineyard is on the side of a hill. Kind of dangerous with a thousand drunks climbing around.After a while, things were starting to wind down a little and I saw a bunch of flamenco dancers off in the distance. I chased them down to get a picture, mostly because Japanese flamenco dancers seemed like a funny idea to me at the time.
On the way home, I got sent ahead from the taxi line to check on the line for the shuttle bus. I didn't see one, but I saw the sign, so I suggested we take the bus. Unfortunately, I didn't see the bus line because it was half a mile away, and when we got there, it was longer than the taxi line, so we went back. The taxi line had grown, so we talked to a stranger that was walking back to the station. He said it was close and it would be faster. Always a good idea to listen to strangers, so we started walking. Just after common sense overtook us, we stumbled across an available taxi and rode back in style.
